The European constel would compete with several other countries and companies.
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The European Union has announced plans to develop a mega constellation of satellites in Earth’s orbit – despite serious concerns about these constellations still unresolved.
The European Commission (EC) today, Wednesday, December 23, announced that it would work with several companies to examine a € 7.1 million ($ 8.7 million) year-long feasibility study to examine the need for a location based. ”
Airbus, Arianespace, Eutelsat, Orange, and Thales Alenia Space are among the companies with which the EC has partnered.
The aim is to build a constellation of satellites “to strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty and provide citizens with a secure connection,” the EC said, as well as providing the internet with rural areas.
“The study will look at how the location-based system could be enhanced and connected to current and future emergency infrastructures, including terrestrial networks,” the EC said. .
They also said that the study would look at the potential role of satellites in 5G “and also look at the growth towards the upcoming 6G technologies. ”
The console’s total cost is expected to be € 6 billion ($ 7.3 billion), Bloomberg said earlier this month.
SpaceX’s StarX service is already operating in the U.S. after more than a dozen launches.
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All over the world, several key players have already appeared in the race to build these constellations and transport the internet to Earth from space.
This includes Starlink, from Elon Musk’s US SpaceX company, which has launched hundreds of satellites and plans to launch as many as 42,000 in the coming years.
The Amazon Kuiper Project in the US is funded by Jeff Bezos, meanwhile, is another competitor, and in the UK the government-backed OneWeb has launched more than 100 satellites of its own – most recently on Friday in the past – after escaping a breach.
Other countries, including China, have plans to launch a constella of hundreds of satellites. In total, it is estimated that more than 100,000 satellites could be added to Earth’s orbit in the coming years, far exceeding the current number of 2,500 active satellites.
This poses significant challenges and threats to Earth’s orbit. The key is how to deal with this huge increase in traffic, and prevent crashes between satellites.
Such crashes could significantly increase space debris in orbit, increase the risk of more and more crashes (known as Kessler syndrome) or, in a worse case, make parts of the Earth’s orbit -made.
Space debris is a major threat to Earth’s orbit.
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Mega constellations also stand out to dramatically alter the beauty of the night sky, filling it with shiny satellites as bright as stars that are easily visible to the naked eye.
This could make professional astronomy a much more difficult endeavor, with multi-satellites running across the line of sight of telescopes when trying to see the universe.
Many experts – including the European Space Agency (ESA) – have feared that standard rules and regulations are not enough to deal with mega constellations, with the problem compared to the early days of climate change .
The news from the European Union to develop its own constellation is likely to only fuel concerns, with many problems still to be addressed and the potential to damage Earth’s orbit for decades or even generations.